Saturday, September 17, 2011

He’s Baaaack: Evolution Professor Walks it Back, Then Forward, Then Back, Then …

When I explained how astronomically unlikely protein evolution is, a professor complained that I had it all wrong. When he saw evolution’s ridiculously long odds he figured I must be assuming that the entire protein sequence space must be randomly sampled to yield functional proteins.

Of course that’s not true and my calculations were, in fact, on the optimistic side for evolution.

Next the professor recommended a paper that would clear it all up by explaining that only a very limited fraction of the protein sequence space actually need be searched.

But of course the paper didn’t help. Even though its assumptions were completely ridiculous (e.g., protein evolution is explained by first assuming the earth is loaded with bacteria which are each chocked full of, yes, proteins), the paper nonetheless proved how unlikely is protein evolution. Even with their ridiculous assumptions, and giving evolution every advantage (e.g., assuming only part of a protein need be evolved, with the other parts already, somehow, evolved), protein evolution is 27 to 49 orders of magnitude from reality. That puts it somewhere between a myth and a fairy tale.

So next the professor explained that protein evolution—even though the subject of massive evolutionary assaults—is actually not part of evolution at all. “Evolutionary theory,” he said, “makes no claims about the origin of life.”

This is a favorite trick of evolutionists. Biology is incredibly complex and defies evolutionary musings, so evolutionists say that incredible complexity actually occurred in the beginning, when life first formed. Evolution proper, they say, took the helm at that point. It is another evolutionary shell game that reveals their desperation.

Next the professor said I was playing a “numbers game.” That was similar to what the paper said:

We hope that our calculation will also rule out any possible use of this big numbers ‘game’ to provide justification for postulating divine intervention.

As usual divine intervention was the target. It must, of course, be ruled out. After all, that’s not scientific and evolution is a fact.

Next the professor said such “numbers games” are futile because there is too much uncertainty:

The frivolity is in his probability calculations. Such calculations depend on such questionable assumptions that they are scientifically useless - though they seem to be useful to anti-evolution apologists.

I pointed out that I was using assumptions from the paper which he had recommended. Why was he now disparaging the assumptions as “questionable” and “scientifically useless”?

Now the professor says that he did not disparage the paper but rather my use of the paper. But all I did was use the results from the paper.

But since I pointed out that those results were ridiculously optimistic, the professor now says we shouldn’t use those results because “probability calculations are only as good as the qualifying assumptions behind them.”

So let’s see, evolutionists provide the results, those results show evolution to be astronomically unlikely, but since the results, as bad as they are, are nonetheless unrealistically optimistic toward evolution, we should just drop the whole thing.

CH: Evolutionists dogmatically insist that evolution is an obvious fact, beyond a shadow of a doubt. It would be perverse and irrational, they say, to doubt it. It is as well established as the fact that the earth is round. It is as much a fact as is gravity, they say. The only way evolution is not a fact, they say, is if this is all a dream.

Then, apparently, the majority of commenters such as myself here are not "evolutionists", as we do not fit your disingenuous attempt to misrepresent our position.

You're boxing shadows.

Microevoluiton is observed to the extent that the phenomena of gravity is observed (all observations are theory laden). However, we explain the phenomena of gravity with the theory that space-time is warped in the presence of mass. We cannot observe the warping of space-time any more than we can go back in the distant past and observe life evolve on our planet.

Theories explain the seen with the unseen. However, there are different positions as to what is or is not science when it comes to things unseen.

For example, as I pointed out in the previous thread, Einstein was NOT an instrumentalist. Just because something could not seen (space-time warping) this didn't mean that his theory was NOT thought to represent objective reality. We really assume that space-time warps in the presence of mass. This was behind Einstein' predicted variation of Mercury's orbit. In this case,

Einstein's prediction was based on our best underlying explanations of how things were, in reality, at the time the prediction was made. Specifically, there a number of other unseen explanations for other phenomena. Since these other unseen explanations are also though to represent reality, they can interact with each other and change what we will experience. This is why observations of the variation in Mercury's orbit made Newton's laws of motion useful, but untenable as an explanation for the phenomena of gravity itself.

The specific implications of Einstein's unseen, yet though to be real explanation, in reality, is what led to the specific prediction of variation in Mercury's orbit.

On the other hand, the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is an instrumentalist theory. This is because Bohr did think that the wave function did NOT represent objective reality. It was highly successful at mathematically modeling aspects of non-classical physics, but we could not actually see particles turn into waves, as observations caused the wave function to collapse. When particles were acting like waves, all we could observe is there effect.

In other words, there was no corresponding, unseen explanation behind the wave function. It was merely a "instrument" to successfully model non-classical physics.

However, Instrumentalism is relic of logical positivism and empiricism. These are positions (philosophies of science) which suggest that unseen things are meaningless or do not represent reality as a component science.

While instrumentalism attempts to skirt the realism / anti-realism debate, it clearly is not scientific realism, generally argues against logical positively and instrumentalism.

While there are variants of scientific realism, roughly all indicate that scientific theories offer some level of accurate reference or portrayal of an objective reality which is independent of the mind

Since I'm a critical rationalist, which is a variation of scientific realism, apparently I'm not an "evolutionist" since I do not fit his characterization.

CH:so evolutionists say that incredible complexity actually occurred in the beginning, when life first formed.

No they don't. In fact, quite the opposite. If life arose from natural processes then it must have initially began as a simple self-replicating molecule such as has been proposed in the "RNA World" hypothesis. What evolutionists do say is that once you have a self-replicating entity then given the fact of random copying errors (aka mutations) and the fact of natural selection (both of which we can directly observe) and the fact of a whole lot of time (a really vast, almost unimaginable amount of time), what you eventually arrive at is complex life. Nobody thinks that incredible complexity occurred in the beginning, when life first formed. Oh, except creationists of course.

Apparently, Cornelius has edited his post to exclude this paragraph from the OP.

The quote originated in a comment from a previous post here. Either he liked the quote enough to put it in this post and then thought better of it, or you are simply mis-remembering seeing it in this post. Either way the quote itself is accurate.

Apparently, Cornelius has edited his post to exclude this paragraph from the OP.

The quote originated in a comment from a previous post here. Either he liked the quote enough to put it in this post and then thought better of it, or you are simply mis-remembering seeing it in this post. Either way the quote itself is accurate.

CH did include that quote in this OP, it was there when I read the site earlier today. It was later removed for some reason.

If life arose from natural processes then it must have initially began as a simple self-replicating molecule such as has been proposed in the "RNA World" hypothesis. What evolutionists do say is that once you have a self-replicating entity then given the fact of random copying errors (aka mutations) and the fact of natural selection (both of which we can directly observe) and the fact of a whole lot of time (a really vast, almost unimaginable amount of time), what you eventually arrive at is complex life.

Hmm, evolutionists say it, it takes a really long time, is based on mutations, natural selection performs the usual wonders, ... Sounds a lot like evolution.

CH: Of course that’s not true and my calculations were, in fact, on the optimistic side for evolution.

The problem is that statistical probabilities are subject to the problem of induction. While our intuition may lead us to think otherwise, they they are inadequate for justifying concussions.

To use an example, Imagine you've found yourself at the entry to a labyrinth. You have five possible staring paths available and you decide to take the path on the far right. Every step you take is an observation.

You walk 50 feet. Have you reached a point where you can determine the statistically likelihood that this path represents a dead end or a exit? You walk 100 feet, or even 500 feet. Can you determine the likelihood now?

Before you could do so, you'd need to know where your current locations falls in respect to the beginning, middle, end of the path, etc. However, this would require you to know the length of the path itself. Of course, if you knew this, then you'd already know if the path was a dead end or exit.

In other words, statistical probabilities are inadequate to *justify* conclusions on their own.

Of course, one might intuit that we can make reasonable assumptions about the length of the path since the size of all of the labyrinths we've observed were no greater than X. However, this too commits the same fallacy, as it assumes to know the size of the labyrinth we're in falls at a particular position in the scale of all labyrinths. Or one might claim that we can make assumptions based on limitations of all currently known construction techniques. However this too makes the assumption that there are no better building techniques than what we've observed, etc.

So, even though we know a great deal about how labyrinths, construction techniques, etc. statical probabilities about them are inadequate for *justifying* conclusions regarding their paths.

Now, given that we supposedly even less about how proteins were created, how is it possible to *justify* a conclusion that it's statistically improbable that proteins could have evolved? This line of thinking is irrational.

For example, how do we know that of the particular 20 proteins we're aware of only these 20 proteins that could perform similar function? How do we know that some completely different set of proteins could support life in some significantly different way. And this is just the two I can think of off the top of my head.

Again, it's a myth that we *justify* scientific conclusions via induction. Rather we create theories by conjecture, test them via observations, then discarding those with errors.

To return to my labyrinth analogy, if we take a path and discover it leads us back to the entry we can discard it before finding it is either a dead-end or an exit. That this path represents an expiation as to how one could exit the labyrinth is an error because It was falsified by observations. And If all paths lead back to the entrance then we can discard all of the paths without reaching a dead-end or exit first.

CH: So next the professor explained that protein evolution—even though the subject of massive evolutionary assaults—is actually not part of evolution at all. “Evolutionary theory,” he said, “makes no claims about the origin of life.”

If one were to calculate statistics based on what we know *today*, we would calculate them differently for the evolution of existing proteins compared to abiogenesis. Right? Or are you really suggesting there would be no difference between the two?

CH: Next the professor said such “numbers games” are futile because there is too much uncertainty:

Which is precisely my point.

CH: I pointed out that I was using assumptions from the paper which he had recommended. Why was he now disparaging the assumptions as “questionable” and “scientifically useless”?

This is clearly disingenuous.

Creationists keep coming up with astronomical statistics which they claim are scientific because they're supposedly based on today's scientific assumptions. (They're playing the numbers game) To refer to my analogy, if we should assume there are no larger labyrinths than we've observed, etc. But the paper showed that even if we went by what we know today, their probabilities would still be wrong because they're working with misrepresentations of the theory itself, make unwarranted assumptions, etc.

In other words, even if the numbers game was worth playing, their not even playing it right.

CH: Now the professor says that he did not disparage the paper but rather my use of the paper. But all I did was use the results from the paper.

Then you should have no problem pointing out where the paper said we should *justify* the conclusion that proteins evolved merely based on statistical probability. Please be specific.

When I explained how astronomically unlikely protein evolution is, a professor complained that I had it all wrong. When he saw evolution’s ridiculously long odds he figured I must be assuming that the entire protein sequence space must be randomly sampled to yield functional proteins.

Thanks for your attention, Dr Hunter, but I didn't assume random sampling. What other interpretation do you put on your claim that I quoted in your linked thread:

For a typical protein you would need more than 10^100 (a one followed by one hundred zeros) evolutionary experiments to create it.

When I explained how astronomically unlikely protein evolution is, a professor complained that I had it all wrong. When he saw evolution’s ridiculously long odds he figured I must be assuming that the entire protein sequence space must be randomly sampled to yield functional proteins.

Thanks for your attention, Dr Hunter, but I didn't assume random sampling. What other interpretation do you put on your claim that I quoted in your linked thread:

For a typical protein you would need more than 10^100 (a one followed by one hundred zeros) evolutionary experiments to create it.

Actually you did come up with that. The only way a 10^100 search requirement would translate to a random sampling of the entire protein sequence would be with a 77 amino acid protein (20^77 = 10^100), or at the DNA level, a 166 nucleotide gene (4^166 = 10^100). Those would be small proteins. My value of 10^100 comes from estimating how the search space can realistically be reduced, such as here:

Norm Olsen said... "If life arose from natural processes then it must have initially began as a simple self-replicating molecule..." Dr. Hunter's point today as always is that evolution is based on (a) the assumption of "natural processes" (some but not all "natural processes" however--only those conforming to a certain faith-based metaphysical commitment are allowed) followed by the (b) just-so "must have" in evolution's explanatory mechanism(s). To get his explanatory mechanism to work, Mr. Olsen even wants to inveigle the super-natural with the natural: "it must have initially began as a simple self-replicating molecule...". How many "simple self-replicating molecules" do we see occurring in nature today? Zero. A "simple self-replicating molecule" is therefore by definition a super-natural event. But just so,it "must have" happened. Point proven (again).

"Dr. Hunter's point today as always is that evolution is based on (a) the assumption of "natural processes"..."

No, SCIENCE is based on the assumption of natural processes.

So, yes, ToE, does assume 'natural processes only' - because it is a scientific theory. And ALL scientific theory assumes 'natural processes only'. The theory of gravity does, the theory of general relativity does, germ theory does, atomic theory does, the list goes on and on. Yet only the theory of evolution is criticised for doing this. Why?

"(b) just-so "must have" in evolution's explanatory mechanism(s)."

Pardon?

"How many "simple self-replicating molecules" do we see occurring in nature today? Zero."

How many dinosaurs do we see today? Zero. Proof positive that they never existed, I suppose?

How many "simple self-replicating molecules" do we see occurring in nature today? Zero.

Wrong again oh clueless one.

Biologists create self-replicating RNA moleculeNewScientistApril 2011

It doesn't have a very sexy name, but tC19Z, synthesised in a lab in Cambridge, UK, could be a version of one of the first enzymes that ever existed on our planet - and a clue to how life itself got started.

A prominent theory of how life started involves the appearance of a self-replicator - some kind of simple molecule that was capable of making copies of itself without relying on other molecules. The trouble is, if this self-replicating molecule ever did exist, it doesn't any more. The vast majority of organisms around today use DNA to store their genetic information, and DNA does not copy itself - other enzymes do that bit for it.

Enter tC19Z. Built by Philipp Holliger and colleagues, it is an RNA enzyme that functions like a self-replicator."

As regards the TSP, it depends what you need to do at each node of the search path. The no free lunch theorem suggests that on average, it is all the same which search algorithm to choose performance-wise. I have seen your comments on the UD forum. You seem to underestimate the complexity of the initial information content problem. Yes, once the mechanism of microevolution is kicked off, it works and we can see that. But, from the information theoretic standpoint, no genuine biological (phylogenetic) novelty can be purchased spontaneously free of change without purposeful fine-tuning of the multiple parameters of the system (i.e. without intelligent interference). The problem is aggrevated as you go from the simplest living forms to the most complex. So climbing the Mt Improbable from the easier side does not work out. Probabilistic resources of the universe are not sufficient to make things happen the way evolutionists want them to look.

If you look back in the history of science, of people who doubted the plausibility of evolution a majority were mathematicians/ information theorists/physicists. Now for non-scientific reasons, it is not politically correct to doubt macroevolution. But I hope this is not for long as things do change.

I have written something up in my own blog about this here at blogspot.

"You seem to underestimate the complexity of the initial information content problem. Yes, once the mechanism of microevolution is kicked off, it works and we can see that. But, from the information theoretic standpoint, no genuine biological (phylogenetic) novelty can be purchased spontaneously free of change without purposeful fine-tuning of the multiple parameters of the system (i.e. without intelligent interference)."

Your reasoning is full of metaphors. Perhaps if you rewrote it and listed the specific biological and chemical mechanisms required by evolution that have not been observed.

You could follow that up by listing the mechanisms required by ID that have been observed.

Thorton said,"Biologists create self-replicating RNA molecule"Just as I suggested: a super-natural event. Thorton, do you deliberately miss the points anyone makes who doesn't agree with you or do you really not get it? Either way, I've already answered your request for details twice. So, respond to what I wrote or bluster till you fluster, your choice.

LOL! How does scientists showing that self-replicating molecules can exist make it a supernatural event?

Thorton, do you deliberately miss the points anyone makes who doesn't agree with you or do you really not get it?

What point do you think you made? That you can get by with empty assertions and try and bluff your way around scientific topics you don't understand?

Either way, I've already answered your request for details twice.

Your 'answer' was a smart-alec evasive comment only. You have yet to provide a single detail about the mechanisms for ID. We'll make it six times you cowardly avoided the question.

We both know you'll never answer because you can't. You can't provide any details for ID at all. Not a single one. I'll just keep rubbing your nose in it every time you bellyache that evolutionary can't provide every detail.

When faced with a mystery, the scientific response is not to appeal to the supernatural. It is to state, quite plainly, 'We don't know - yet'. And then to investigate, by application of the scientific method - which assumes naturalism.

"So, by definition, your ToE REQUIRES some super-natural event from the get-go..."

No, it requires merely a self-replicating organism. How the first self-replicating organism came about might be a mystery, but mysteries are not, de facto, supernatural.